Employees of the Month
by Random Ruth
Summary: Team Machine attempt to settle into their new jobs with varying degrees of success. Set post 3.23 "Deus Ex Machina"; outsider POVs. A series of one-shots.
1. Sam

**1. Patty's Bakery**

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Patty's always liked a good cake. It's in her genes, she supposes—at least, that's what her mother would say as she ran the bakery. Patty is something of a perfectionist but the new girl (everyone just calls her Sam—she seems to get bored before she finishes saying her name), well, in all of her years of running this bakery since her mother died, Patty has never had an employee who is so sleight of hand. The little desiccated coconut sheep on Sam's farmyard cupcakes are absolutely divine, and everyone asks her to do the groom's buttons on the wedding cakes now.

Patty likes to think that she's a laid-back boss—she's down in the kitchen with everyone else with the company apron on, hands buried in the mixing bowl—but Sam's making her wonder if she should start implementing some new workplace rules. While she bakes, Sam likes to help herself to some samples. Patty's been watching her—no one person, especially one so slender, could possibly eat that much cake in one day. Patty should probably confront her about that, but there's something about Sam that leads Patty to think she'd get her head bitten off if she got on Sam's wrong side, so for now she keeps quiet.

On day one Patty learned the hard way to keep Sam away from the customers—she's too blunt, too impatient and she doesn't smile at them. She just stares at them piercingly until they hand over the bills and get the hell out. If that stare was directed at her Patty's sure she would throw the money and run.

Then there's the cream gun. Sylvia made it for Patty and her bakers to use last year and it's saved a lot of cleaning up ever since. On day two of her banishment to the kitchen Sam found it. She could stand three feet away from a cake and squirt the cream accurately. And, one morning when a bride-to-be was becoming hysterical to the point of violence over the issue of whether to have strawberries or raspberries on her wedding cake, it was found that Sam could also accurately fire cream from six feet. The bride-to-be shrieked at the streak of cream that started in her hair and ended at her feet.

Georgia, who'd been just a little bit scared, has hero-worshipped Sam ever since.

Patty watches Sam now as she samples some of her cookie dough mix and nods in satisfaction before continuing to stir. _She's a hero, really_, Patty thinks, _so who am I to begrudge her a few free samples?_

The next day when Sam comes into the kitchen everyone's lying in wait with party-poppers. Sam doesn't jump—a part of Patty didn't expect her to—and she's not very excited by the photo on the wall that has 'EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH' written underneath it.

The celebratory booze, however, does disappear rather quickly, which is strange—Patty was sure she'd bought enough for everyone.

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**Author's Note:** I might write some more of these for the other characters—after all, you do have to wonder what sort of jobs Root had planned for them... Thanks for reading! :)


	2. Harold and Bear

**A/N:** Back by popular demand! Thanks so much to the guests for their reviews, and to anyone who's followed or favourited! As anyone who uses this site will know all too well, reviews make the words flow much better. If I was going to continue this then I was going to try and have each chapter of an equal length because I like things to be neat and tidy—but it was not to be! Harold's adventure is a longer one by far, but I hope you enjoy it! :)

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**2. Mad Monkeys**

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Stan the Man wants to hire a new guy—or gal—to join the Mad Monkeys Computer Repairs and Development team. He's only got one employee—Bob the Builder. He's dynamite with a soldering iron. (No, seriously, Stan's had to have a fire extinguisher or several installed since the Great Fire of 2013.) Expansion is essential to any business but the only problem is that things are already a little crowded. The flat was cheap because there are just three rooms, and one of them is the bathroom and therefore unsuitable for use as an office. It's tempting to move Bob into there so he's in closer proximity to water. The other room can't be used because that's where Betsy lives.

Stan eventually decides to just go for it since you only live once and people on the street are starting to notice the little sign above the door and use their services. Stan organises the whole thing over email. He decides between the two applicants based on their pervious merits. He doesn't want to have to start training someone. Harold it is, then.

Since it's all done over email, the first time Stan lays eyes upon Harold is when he arrives for his first day at work. He's older than Stan expected—he'd never thought to ask for anybody's age. He walks with a limp, too—how he's going to navigate the stairs every day is going to be interesting. Stan shrugs. _He's here, isn't he?_ Harold takes the shrug as an invitation to speak.

"I'm here for the new job," he says, sounding slightly distracted as his eyes scan the cube of a room. Stan glances over at Bob who's busy soldering a broken wire in a customer's ancient keyboard and hasn't taken notice of the new guy. Stan briefly contemplates throwing something at him to catch his attention, but decides against it so they can all avoid another Great Fire Incident.

"Hey, man," Stan greets Harold, setting his laptop aside and rising from his beanbag chair. "Harold, isn't it?" Harold nods. "Stan the Man," he introduces himself, "and this is Bob the Builder." One of Harold's eyebrows rises at the mention of the team nicknames.

"Nice to meet you," he says, sticking his hand out.

Stan shakes it, just to be polite. _God, I really hope this guy isn't boring._ "Relax, Harold, you're at work. And don't disturb Bob when he's soldering," Stan adds hurriedly as Harold moves to greet Bob, "it doesn't end well." Stan allows some seriousness to seep into his tone and the message gets across. "You okay with the blue beanbag?"

"Of course," Harold assures after a momentary pause. He doesn't sit, but rather falls onto the beanbag in a controlled manner. Stan hands him a laptop and he gets to work. While Stan fiddles with the online game he's coding, he's already trying to think of a nickname for the new guy if he stays. There's something about Harold that reminds Stan of birds—it must be the nose, or the glasses.

Bob says hi to Harold once he's finished his soldering and Harold shakes hands with him. So far Harold's been a bit bland and Stan's starting to doubt that having on older guy around was such a cool idea after all.

"Ten o'clock, guys," Bob suddenly announces, throwing his goggles to one side and rubbing his hands together. "Break time."

Harold glances up from his laptop, looking like he's lost track of the time—then he checks his watch and realises he hasn't. "But we only started four minutes ago."

Bob gets up from his green beanbag and stretches his arms above his head; Stan hears bones crack. "We always have a break at ten," he says. "We're all adults here."

"Well, in that case, I'll have some tea, please."

"No tea." Bob shakes his head as he goes over to the mini-fridge in the corner. "We have beer, though, lots of beer." He throws a bottle at Stan in an obviously regularly practised move. "Want one?" Bob asks Harold.

Stan half expects the old guy to disapprove and say no. Instead he thinks for a moment and then says, "Why not?" His catch is a little fumbling, and he opens the bottle clumsily. "Cheers," he states with a nod to the both of them. Stan gets the impression that this is something Harold doesn't do very often.

"Cheers," he echoes anyway, appreciating Harold's attempts to blend in.

The next day Bob decides, since the old guy came back, he's worthy of an introduction to Betsy. Betsy stares at Harold indifferently and he returns the sentiment with a frosty reception.

"She's real friendly," Bob reassures as he holds the black scorpion in his palm for Harold to see. "She's only stung me, like, five times. Wanna hold her?"

Harold's hands remain fixed at his sides. "No, thank you," he says, polite as ever but his muscles are tight. He watches with poorly disguised morbid fascination as Betsy is returned to her house and Stan feeds her a chirping cricket.

"You got any pets?" Stan asks conversationally. He tries to catch another of the crickets in the Tupperware box with a pair of tweezers.

"One. A dog. He's called Bear."

"Awesome," says Stan with obvious approval as he gives Betsy the snagged cricket. "He at home alone?"

"Yes," Harold confirms.

Bob shakes his head sadly. "Not cool, man... not cool."

"Excuse me?"

"You should bring him into the office tomorrow," Stan suggests as they leave Betsy to her lunch. "We welcome pets of all kinds—I mean, I don't have one but Bob's got his Betsy..."

"I do." Bob flops onto his beanbag.

"Yeah, and we gotta look after the animals. The animals are our future... or something."

"He's quite big," Harold warns, still uncertain, eyeing the tiny pathways between the beanbags.

Stan flings an arm across Harold's shoulders. "With a name like that, I wouldn't expect anything else."

Harold arrives with his dog the following morning. Bear's friendly, not just his tail but his whole body wagging as he greets first Stan and then Bob. Harold bends stiffly to let the dog off the leash and after a quick perimeter sniff of the room, he decides he likes Harold's beanbag the best and sits dutifully beside it.

"We'll get him his own beanbag," Stan announces, patting Bear on the head. The dog laps up the attention with a suitable doggy grin. "You like yellow? I fancy a yellow one next. Then we can have all the colours of _Google_."

"My mom made this for Bear," Bob says on day two of having Bear in the office. He kneels down on one knee to attach a black bandana to the dog's collar. 'BEAR: AN OFFICIAL MAD MONKEY' is embroidered on it with red thread. Bear thanks him by licking his face.

Bear's well-behaved and doesn't mind watching the Mad Monkeys as they work. He spends his days going from one Mad Monkey to the other. They take it in turns walking him too—Stan finds that he quite enjoys being outdoors, and walking Bear makes Bob wish he could attach a leash to Betsy, or so he tells Stan.

One afternoon as Bob solders a hard drive, Harold fixes glitches in the software of a customer's laptop, and Stan claps himself on the back for making such a good decision in employing Harold, Bear does a circuit of the room. Stan watches as he stops beside the mini-fridge. He nudges it with his nose, ears pricked and posture alert. Before Stan can work out what he's doing, Bear lunges for the mini-fridge with an excited yelp. The noise makes Harold and Bob turn to watch too. When Bear lifts his head he's happily chewing.

"I wondered where that cricket went," Bob says absently with a shrug before turning back to his soldering.

Over the past few months Harold—and Bear—have become Mad Monkeys in their own right. _I really need to give the new guy a nickname_, Stan thinks with a chuckle as he watches Bear now.

Harold takes on an expression of undisguised terror as Bear decides he wants to lick his face next.


	3. John

**A/N: **This has been the trickiest one to write so far—John's just so good at adapting to things! Thanks once more for faves, alerts and reviews. :)

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**3. De Courcey's Day Care**

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It was a Monday and Miss De Courcey's senility was under question.

She'd been hiring and her new employee started today. Since everyone who works at De Courcey's Day Care is a woman, it was quite a surprise to find that the new girl was actually a new _guy_. If he looked like anything, it was not a nanny.

Sarah sat beside Tracy in the staffroom at lunchtime and they'd both spied on the new guy. He looked gorgeous—that much was obvious—but he may as well have been a beautifully carved marble statue. He stood by the door, posture rigid, and watched the kids warily from the side-lines. His absolute stillness was probably starting to scare some of them, and it certainly unnerved Sarah.

"He's _so_ out of his depth," Tracy said with a small chuckle after she'd swallowed her pro-biotic yoghurt for health nuts. "I just can't watch," she added as she continued to do just that.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "He must have the credentials or he wouldn't be here," she pointed out reasonably as she ate a bag of chips.

Tracy had pouted, deep in thought. "I suppose," she allowed eventually. They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. "You wanna bet on it?" she asked, suddenly animated again. At Sarah's look, she extrapolated; "I bet fifty dollars he'll be gone before the end of the week."

Sarah had sneaked another glance at the new guy and grinned; she's always been a sucker for a challenge. "You're on," she'd said.

What had followed was a week of intensive training of the new guy. And she found, once he had someone barking in his ear, he turned into a child-minding machine. He could follow instructions without question, didn't blink when Sarah threw him into the deep end to help with the younger kids in the room with all the babies in, and when she dragged him out again a few hours later to read the slightly older kids a book in the library corner he was only slightly fazed.

Tracy joined Sarah for that first story on Monday evening, and the pair had exchanged meaningful looks. Tracy's smug smile was wiped from her face when he'd started to read. He had one of those voices that Sarah could listen to forever, and the kids were the same. It was the first of many hidden talents he'd revealed as the week wore on.

It's Friday now, and Miss De Courcey's senility is no longer under question.

Sarah sits in the library corner, really a collection of colourful cushions arranged into a semi-circle, with little Mary on her lap and Lynn beside her, Martin with his legs crossed and sitting right at the front, Marvin and Tilly and Gloria and Kevin and Richard and Peter all gathered close. There's a hum of anticipation in the huddle, one that Sarah is no doubt adding to. She enjoys this, John commanding an audience—she thinks he's surprised himself with how good he is at it.

The kids and Sarah watch as John sits down on the largest cushion, the one reserved for the reader. He crosses his legs to mirror Martin, and even though Sarah can't see Martin's face she can imagine the look of pride. There's something about John that Sarah can't quite put her finger on, but he attracts kids like bees to honey.

John rummages through the plastic storage box for a book his hasn't read yet this week—there can't be many left since John's proven so popular with the kids he's sometimes been requested to read more than one.

He opens his selected book and rests it on his lap. "'Badger'," he announces, reading the cover. "'Badger was the best at making mud pies, and all of the other animals...'" he begins before he's interrupted by Marvin.

"We've already heard this one," he declares boldly, and the quieter kids gain enough confidence to nod along with the rest.

"Oh. Okay," John replies, already rummaging for another book in the box. He holds up one called 'Doug's Good Day' with an illustration of a dog on the front. This, too, is met with disapproval. 'Albert the Pig' and 'Dee and Her Tree' suffer the same fate.

"Tell us a story!"

"Yeah, tell us one!"

"A brand new story!"

"Oh, go on!"

The last is Sarah, who smirks back at John as he catches her eye. He looks almost betrayed, but that only makes Sarah smirk harder.

"All right, then..." John says, and pauses to think. The kids watch his every move, waiting uncharacteristically patiently. John takes on a nostalgic smile as an idea comes to him.

"Once upon a time there was this bird—a finch—and he liked to watch things. He would sit in his tree and he would watch everything that happened down below. He could see, uh, the bears as they wandered by... and the people playing with their kites.

"One day the finch saw a chipmunk—"

"I don't like chipmunks," Peter says plainly with no further explanation apparently required. John's resultant expression of bewilderment has Sarah stifling a laugh.

"...One day the finch saw a _squirrel_," he waits for Peter to nod his approval, "on the ground, and he was upset. The finch was worried and he flew down to see what the matter was. The squirrel was going round in circles because he'd lost his nuts but he didn't want any help. When the finch told the squirrel that he could help, the squirrel ran away..." He stops as Tilly takes the rare opportunity to climb onto John's lap since it's free of books.

"But the finch was very persistent," John goes on, and somehow he finds that sentence funny, "he knew the squirrel needed help. So he took the squirrel up into his tree and showed him his perch where he watched things from. And the finch said, 'I think I know who took your nuts—it was the chipmunk!'

"The squirrel went to investigate and in the chipmunk's burrow were his nuts! He asked very nicely to have his nuts back and because he'd been so polite the chipmunk agreed. When the squirrel had all of his nuts back he went back to the finch to thank him for his help, but he was gone!"

John is becoming increasingly dramatic with his voice and, damn it, even Sarah's finding herself sucked in. It's the way he's telling the story, with such conviction, that makes her wonder if there is a grain of truth in it. She'll ask him later, she decides, when she's got him cornered.

"There was a note carved into the tree," John continues, dramatic pause over, "and it said: 'If you ever need help, Mr Squirrel, I'll find you.'

"And that's the end."

He pauses again as if waiting for applause.

"I like Mr Squirrel," Richard says after a beat.

"He's got a bushy tail," giggles Tilly.

"Tweet, tweet, I'm a finch!" Gloria trills, flapping her arms enthusiastically.

"What happens next?" Kevin asks, hugging his blanket tight.

He glances at the clock on the wall and Sarah does the same. It's almost time for parents to start arriving and take the kids home. He smiles broadly, dimples deep, and says, "You can find out next time, okay?" There are collective groans from his audience and Sarah joins in to add to the volume. His smile moulds into a smirk—_gotcha_.

There is a fifty dollar bill waiting for Sarah in her coat pocket as she's about to go home that evening.

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**THE END . . . ?**


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